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H-E-B will expand its presence in Mexico in 2012, despite contending with hijacked truck trailers, parking lot security issues and a devaluing peso, executives said this week.

Having surpassed the $1 billion mark in annual sales in Mexico, San Antonio-based H-E-B plans to add five stores in 2012, its 15th year in that country.

It's also being asked by various Monterrey, Mexico-area municipalities to boost security in its parking lots and says it's still grappling with security issues for its trailers and with customers using falsified credit cards.

In Texas, the grocer has plans for aggressive growth this fiscal year - November to November - to expand or open 22 stores and remodel 33 other locations, said Craig Boyan, president and chief operating officer.

In Houston, H-E-B has plans for nine expansions/new stores and three remodelings this fiscal year, Boyan said.

Winell Herron, H-E-B's vice president of public affairs, said the expansion would have an overall jobs impact of 5,000 in Texas, including such jobs as construction.

In Mexico, H-E-B will open one store each in Monclova, Saltillo, Victoria and Monterrey. A second store in Monterrey will add up to six stores called Mi Tienda del Ahorro, a low-price chain started more than three years ago, Butt said.

H-E-B's Mexico sales reached $1.2 billion in 2011, Butt said. Total H-E-B revenues last year in Texas and Mexico were $18 billion.

Butt said H-E-B is concentrating "for the foreseeable future" on expansion in the five northeastern Mexico states where it operates: Nuevo León, Coahuila, Tamaulipas, San Luis Potosí and Guanajuato. H-E-B last fall doubled the size of its Monterrey warehouse. In all, H-E-B employs 7,500 workers in Mexico, Butt said.

H-E-B's San Antonio and Corpus Christi plants ship many items to Mexico daily. Butt said 15 trucks a day leave San Antonio to deliver products like bread, tortillas, ice cream, milk, baked goods and deli meats.

H-E-B has confronted crime and security issues.

Over the years, H-E-B has lost a couple of trailers due to hijacking by organized crime in Mexico, Butt said. Falsified credit cards are another crime H-E-B is facing, along with all other Mexico retailers, he said.

Municipalities in the Monterrey area also are asking retailers, including H-E-B, to step up parking lot security to reduce the number of auto thefts, Butt said. In addition to surveillance cameras and security guards, some municipalities want parking lots gated and tickets given to drivers, who give the tickets back when they retrieve their cars.

H-E-B lost sales in Mexico in the 2009-11 period when Mexico added tariffs to 99 products, many of them food items, after the U.S. Congress ended a cross-border trucking program in 2009, Butt said. Because of the tariffs, some products were discontinued and others had to carry higher prices, which reduced sales, Butt said.

Mexico eliminated the tariffs last year when a new trucking program started. But a 13 percent slide in the value of the peso against the dollar is raising the costs of goods shipped to Mexico.

"It's been a mixed bag" of tariffs and fluctuating currency rates, Butt said.